Kategory oerlis:Meidogger/Follyglot

Caveats

know your audience

Different communities have different norms. Some smaller communities are aggressively seeking content, and are happy to take it in pretty sloppy format. Recognising that it's easier to clean up grammar and suboptimally chosen words than to create content from scratch, they're quite gracious when you do your best and tack a "Help! Please clean this up for me!" in the discussion page.

When I create an id on a new language project, I try to put xx-0 in my babel box right away. Then I'll see if I get a welcome message. Twice I've gotten a clueful one that even noticed my entry and responded appropriately. They were in this "sloppy help welcome" category. See, e.g., last line of this welcome message: http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/Overleg_gebruiker:Snakesteuben.

On the other hand, a few small communities are just as much (if not more) about cultural identity than amassing content. Users on these sites tend to share one or more language in addition to the project's language. They're not crazy about content in mixed languages, and they're not likely to be as grateful for very sloppy content as are sites where some members are 3+ fluent in only that language. For want of a better term, I affectionately call these "boutique sites."

If you don't get a welcome, take a look around before you post something you're not sure of. Google on xx.wikyy.org for 'help English welcome contribution foreign language' yada yada. See if you turn up any express or implied policies, or pages written with you in mind in particular! E.g., courtesy of the exceptionally gracious Croatians: http://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedija:Kafi%C4%87/Foreign_languages and Dutch http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/WikiWoordenboek:Welcome_to_our_foreign_guests.

It's also a good idea to look in the blocked/banned/deletion logs, to see if there are any recalcitrant mods or administrators who are might be annoyed if you try to help.

Creating menus/templates in Babel xx-<1

(40%)

Porting templates that require no native language content should always be OK, even on the boutique sites. If the template uses standard wiki language like "Template" and "User," in most projects, the standard English terms will work just as well as the ... finish later ...

But try to go one better. Set your display language to the language of the project, open the page you want, and see what the native word is. ... later ... blah blah

At very least do this for the menus. An example: (complex template draft in progress) http://fy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meidogger:Snakesteuben/berjocht/ut/checkuser

(Disclaimer, I do know some Frisian. But I could have constructed the menu part even if I didn't.)

Hints for creating rudimentary content in a language with which you are unfamiliar

I speak virtually no Croatian.

Example of my own recent creations. http://hr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Njema%C4%8Dki_jezik
http://hr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Portugalski_jezik

(I'll explain later how I used two similar entries and the links and articles linked in those entries to construct these. That is, if anyone actually starts listening!)

The Babel template pt-1 did not exist on the Croatian project. Creating the template using an example from another language was simple enough. But then, there were all these red links that were supposed to link to stub articles. I couldn't let that stay that way if I could help it.